A PR Firm working for 2K Games tweets restricting games to only certain reviewers - NeoGAF

Oh that is so, so wrong.

How can ANYONE deny that there isn't some shady dealings going on in gaming journalism, especially when it comes to the review scene?

What do most major gaming sites live on? Ad revenue. What ads do they have on their sites? Advertisements for the big up and coming releases. What games tend to get the best scores (whether they are deserved or not)? Big up and coming releases. You're not gonna bite the hand that feeds ya are you?

Just look at Gamespot and the whole Jeff Gerstman Kane and Lynch debacle. He gave the game a more than fair review. And he was fired. It also just so happens that Gamespot was running a big ad campaign for the game he basically said to not buy.

Or how about reviewers getting sent off to a nice resort along with a nice gift basket to be pampered while they play the newest Call of Duty in the absolute best conditions possible?

How about Gametrailers giving Uncharted 2 a 9.2 (I believe), justifying the lower marks on the fact that no game that doesn't do anything original can score higher. Modern Warfare 2 went on to receive a higher score and win just about every one of their game of the year awards.

Or Japanese magazine Famitsu outright stating that a lot of the games they review based on what the believe the fans will want the game to score, giving popular franchises much higher marks than they may deserve solely out of avoiding potential reader backlash.

And now this?

 

uncharted 2... a 9? i smell corruption.

 

Yea, this is not news to me and it will only get worse as time goes on. Demo's and rental's are my measuring stick anymore because I can't trust what I read on the Internet anymore.

 

IGN has been corrupt for years. I stopped reading them completely because of this. Not that it doesn't exist elsewhere, but they were pretty extreme.

Would you give a game a 6.0 out of 10, when honest sites are giving it 9s and 10s, thus making your "payoff" more obvious. It's like Chewy flying casual. Game Nerd will rage about a .3 of a score in a review.

 

im with trailbreaker, demos etc. the way forward. i always find it suspicious when a game hits the shelves without one.

 

Agreed  

 

Ya. I don't trust most reviews today. Look at cod each game can easily be dlc because it brings in very little new but it gets very high ratings. But I can say that uncharted 2 is very good and I have nothing against it.

 

Breaking: news is not news.

Also gaming + journalism =  

Call it what it is; enthusiast press.

 

It's bordered on tabloids.

 

I like 1up.com for all my reviews. You know they must be good because every comment on each review is filled with hate and rage.

 

Thing like nintendo power I don't trust because it owned by nintendo so they will always put out a good word

 

i used to like destructiod, but i'm pretty their recent success seems to have gone to their heads. also, giant bomb.

 

I use Joystiq. I don't really read reviews, but their news seems pretty down the middle. I do look at Metacritic, though. I don't want to buy a game that universally gets a 2.0. But if IGN gives it a 5.0, I will buy it even more.

 

Reviews for games on the internet are mostly done by people who have no plan. I just read selected magazines on real paper which match my personal taste. Anything else is pointless. The most laughable thing is, when people do retro-reviews and aren't even born in that time and review it from todays point of view.

 

Since when have I let an article be my final decision?! HA! Never.

 

Gamepads Unplugged told it like it was! They didn't get any freebies or get pushed around by industry fatcats!  

 

This.

So often I find myself on the outside looking in as far as game review/video game tastemakers go these days anyway.

I dig what I dig, and really could give a damn about what some schmuck getting paid to review games has to say most of the time. I'd rather find out for myself in most instances by either a demo or taking the plunge.

 

SMH.

Before you guys go nuts about corruption (which isn't without basis in reality, I'm aware), at least be aware of what actually happened.

A) The PR firm made these comments without authorization from 2K
B) Aforementioned PR firm was only considering withholding future review copies because of the reviews for DNF being "venom-filled".
and
C) The same PR firm later apologized personally to a large amount of reviewers.

I'm not going to disagree with any of you when it comes to corruption in video game reviewing, it's just that this probably isn't the best example of it considering that for once, video game reviewers basically told the PR firm to piss off.

QFMFT  

 

1up just got bought by IGN.

 

I remember in the good old days (in the mid nineties somewhere) and the press junket was all new to the video games industry.

I remember the lead up for Tomb Raider, and Eidos paid for a load of games journalists to go for a big trip to Egypt on a big tour boat that took in the sights...

They all came back with diarrhea...